


Shark Week

by ISolemlySwear



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, Angst and Fluff, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, But he's trying and he's really sweet, Deals with some of Remus' dysphoria, Dysphoria, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endometriosis, Gender Dysphoria, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Menstruation, One Shot, Remus is not really diagnosed but it's understood he has something, Sirius is cis, Supportive Sirius Black, SupportiveCisBoyfriend!Sirius, TW Dysphoria, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Male Remus Lupin, Trans Remus Lupin, TransGuy!Remus, and a little lost, bc trans guys can get them too and on top of the pain it's a bucketload of dysphoria, but beware anyway, but it doesn't delve too much into it, can you tell by the messy tags this is the first time posting my writing, give me a shot please?, pcos, period pain, reproductive system illnesses, so I don't think it's a big trigger, sorry abt this but I promise the writing's less messy, trans!remus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:47:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28101153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ISolemlySwear/pseuds/ISolemlySwear
Summary: TransGuy!Remus is going through that time of the month and he's in a lot of pain, so SupportiveCisBoyfriend!Sirius tries to help even though he has no idea what’s happening and Remus (in true Remus fashion) keeps pushing him away
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 113





	Shark Week

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Disclaimer: I own nothing (though at this point, JK doesn't deserve to own it either)
> 
> TW: Talk of periods and all the natiness that can come with.

Sirius was feeling a little abandoned. It was Saturday and, with its regular visit to Hogsmead, this should have been a pretty good day for him. Instead, he's walking down the pathway to Hogwarts all alone. James and Peter totally abandoned him for their dates. I mean, if those can even be considered dates… After years and years of telling him to fuck off, Evans has finally started talking to Prongs, which, to him (and only him), is the beginning of a great love story. All it takes is a casual conversation and an invitation to come to Honeydukes and James forgets all about his best friends, his Marauders, the ones who were with him through it all. Ungrateful git. And after James was gone, it wasn't long until Wormtail was off with Maudie, the fourth-year Hufflepuff he'd taken to the ball last semester. To be fair, Wormy had invited Sirius to tag along, but Maudie's friends were the type to ignore he had a boyfriend or even that he was gay no matter how many times he said it and Sirius was just not up for that. So he's walking back tothe castle and cursing the end of friend loyalty. A voice at the back of his head wants to remind Sirius he would not have minded being left alone at all, if Remus was there. And he was supposed to be there. Except that morning the other Marauders had found a note from Moony saying he was going to take the day off to rest. Which is fair, totally, absolutely fair and Sirius wants Moony to rest, just as much as he doesn't want to be that boyfriend who demands his significant other spend all their free time with him. But it's kinda hard to remember all of those things when it's cold and he's walking alone on an almost empty road because everyone else is out with their dates or their friends.

When he gets to Hogwarts, Sirius debates with himself on whether going back to the dorm and disturbing Remus is a good idea. If he's being honest, Moony's been kind of distant for a while. Ever since they started officially dating, actually. It seems like he never wants Sirius around when something's off anymore and Sirius is trying not to read too much into that. He ends up telling himself he'll stop by their dorm and see if Remus wants company. If not, he'll just get his broom and practice some. He makes his way up the stairs to find the curtains around Remus' bed still closed.

"Hum, Moony?" He asks softly. "You awake?"

The silence stretches for long enough that Sirius starts looking around for his broom, but then: "Yeah…" Remus' voice is small. Not a sleepy kind of small but a something's-wrong kind of small.

"Moony?" Sirius forgets all about the broom and steps closer to his boyfriend' bed.

"What?" That's a little snappy, which only makes Sirius worry more.

"Uh, can I come in?"

"... I'd rather not…" He doesn't sound very convinced.

"Are you sure?"

"Am I sure?"

"Well, are you sure you really don't want me to come in and you're not just doing that thing where you're not okay but you pretend you are and you don't want me to come in and see that you really are not okay?"

"...You're not going to leave until I let you come in, are you?"

"Not unless I know you're okay, no," Sirius admits.

Remus sighs and there's a moment of silence in which Sirius thinks he might just have to take a seat and make himself comfortable, but then… "Okay, come in."

Sirius opens the curtains to find Moony curled up in a fetal position, one of his arms wrapped protectively around his stomach, the other resting near his head.

"See? I'm okay," the werewolf says. "No blood, no injuries, I'm just trying to sleep." That might have been a convincing argument if Remus didn't look so… depressed. He'd said the whole thing in a flat tone and hadn't even moved his head up to look at Sirius. His gaze was firmly set on a spot to the right of Sirius' legs and, upon closer inspection, Sirius could see bloodshot eyes and the tracks of poorly wiped-off tears.

"Moony… please talk to me?" Sirius feels at a loss.

"Talking is about the last thing I wanna do right now, Padfoot." God, he sounds so tired...

Sirius sighs. "Well, fine, but I'm not leaving." He sits down on the floor next to Remus' bed, because his boyfriend's balled-up figure is taking up all the space in bed. Sirius leans his back against the wall and looks out the window. The minutes go by in silence and he starts thinking up Quidditch plays to stop himself from fussing over Remus. And then… there's a sniff coming from his right. He turns his head to find tears running down Moony's face, his features contorted into a held-back sob. Sirius doesn't know what to do, so he carefully lays a hand on top of Moony's. Remus sucks in a breath and says:

"This is stupid, really."

"It's not stupid if it's hurting you."

"I just… I need to move." He gives out a sort of hysterical out-of-breath laugh, "I need to move, that's all, that's all I gotta do and yet… It hurts, Pads, it hurts a lot and that's not fair because why did I have to have this on top of everything else, huh? But I'm stupid because all I need to do is move and get the potions in my trunk or my wand to accio the potion and I'll be fine - or, well, I probably won't be fine, but I'll be better. But I can't do that because moving hurts too much and so… And so I'm just laying here crying like a fucking idiot - a fucking weak idiot."

"Hey, don't say that…" Sirius is trying not to show how worried he is and make things worse. "I- I can get you the potion, if you want."

"No, you don't have to do that..." Remus closes his eyes, forcing a tear to fall and make its way across his nose.

"I don't have to, I want to, because you're my boyfriend and I want to do things for you. So, tell me what potion to get." He gets up and heads for Remus' trunk at the bottom of the bed.

"Hum, it's…" Remus licks his lips nervously, "it's, hum, in the potions box over by the foot of the trunk, the- the pink one." He sounds almost embarrassed and Sirius doesn't get why.

"Right," Sirius finds the pink potion (Remus' organization apparently paying off) and takes it back to him. "Here you go."

"I- I don't- Sirius…" oh God, Remus' eyes are closed tight and he sounds… he sounds scared. "Sirius, I'm sorry if this is too weird…"

"Moony? What's wrong?"

Remus opens his eyes and looks up at him incredulously. "Oh. You… Sirius."

"Yes?"

"Read the bottle."

So Sirius does. For bad periods, it says, in a carefully scrawled handwriting that Sirius doesn't recognize. It takes him a second and then - Oh. Oooh. So… it's a trans thing. Remus had told him about it when they'd first started dating, in a nerve wracking, tear-streaked conversation, and they'd never talked about it again. I mean, it wasn't that Sirius didn't want to talk about it (or that he did want to talk about it, fpr that matter), he just wanted to give Remus the space to say however much he wanted whenever he wanted and since Remus had never brought it up… It was still an awkward subject. But that didn't mean Sirius had any problem with it. He didn't, and he wanted Remus to know that, he just didn't know how to make that clear, aside from the reassurances he'd given on that first night.

"Okay…" He's trying to figure out what to say now.

"Okay?"

"Yeah, I- Sorry I hadn't realized. 'M sorry,I should- I should be doing something, right? Taking care of you? I- I can take you to Pomfrey if you want…"

"No, Sirius, I don't fucking want you to take me to Pomfrey," suddenly Remus sounds upset. "Just- just give me that shit and leave me alone, will you?"

Sirius hesitates. "What… what did I do?" He hates this, this whole second-guessing, never knowing what's going on through Remus' mind, afraid he's gonna say the wrong thing… He hates being shut out like this. He gets it, he understands that he can't really understand what Remus is going through and he can't even do something to make it better like he did with the werewolf thing by becoming an animagus, so… this whole thing just sucks.

Remus gives out a small, frustrated while pushing himself up to take the potion from Sirius' hands. "Nothing. You didn't do anything, it's- Sirius, I-" and now he's tearing up and Sirius doesn't understand anything that's happening. "God, I'm sorry." His hands shake violently and he can't seem to pull the cork off the flask. "I'm so sorry, about everything; not just for snapping at you, but for not telling you sooner and for springing all of this on you out of nowhere when you didn't sign up for it and-" He almost drops the potions jar on his lap, "and I'm just so sorry and this has just been such a crappy day, I-" The thing just keeps slipping fr his fingers over and over "Fuck, I hate my life!" He tosses it across the room and the glass shatters loudly against the wall. "Fuck, I- fuck!" He doubles over in a sob.

"Moony. Moony, just- breathe." Sirius sits down on the mess of pillows next to Remus and rubs his back in what he hopes is a soothing motion. Remus' entire body is shaking. After a few seconds, he wipes his face and sits up straighter, shaking Sirius' hand off. Tears run down his face as he stares in a trance at the pink goo making its way down the wall next to James' bed and Sirius is afraid to say anything.

"It's pink," Remus breathes out. "God, figures that shit would be pink…" Sirius looks at him puzzled and Remus actually smiles, which turns out to be the creepiest and most worrying thing he's done all afternoon. "I mean, that can't be natural, right? No way, I don't know anything that would make it pink like that-" He chuckles. "I bet they did it so the twelve-year-old girls would take it. How stupid us that? How stupid have twelve-year-old girls have to be that they'll only take pain medication if it's pink? God, what am I saying? Am I really making fun of twelve-year-old girls? I mean, was a twelve-year-old girl!"

"No you weren't," Sirius cuts him off. "Moony, I-" he suddenly feels uncertain, like he shouldn't be saying this, like he's talking over Remus no matter how wrong what he's saying sounds. Still, he goes on: "You were never a girl."

"Right," Moony nods. "Yeah, right. I just- yeah, you're right, it's just- hard. Especially in weeks like this."

"Because of your period?"

Remus flinches slightly. He looks away as he asks: "Please don't say that word..."

"Shit, I'm sorry. I-"

"No, it's- it's stupid, because, well, that's what it is, a- a period. It's just- Periods are things girls have and I-" he takes a deep breath to stop the tears from re-emerging and shuts up.

"Yeah, I get it," Sirius nods once the silence stretches for too long. "You're not a girl, so… it must be uncomfortable." Uncomfortable? He repeats in his head. Are you really saying dysphoria is just uncomfortable? It's not like when you're wearing the wrong size shoes, Sirius! Get your feet out of your mouth! Remus is still taking very deep berths, so Sirius decides to change the subject, "So, hum, that potion looks kinda ruined, so maybe I should go talk to Pomfrey, get you another one?"

"Yeah, I would really appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone, Pads..."

"Oh, shit, sorry, yeah, you-"

"You can stop apologizing, you know? It's not your fault I have the worst fucking body."

"Yeah, but…" Sirius deflates and the words just come tumbling out: "I'm not handling this too well, am I?" This is probably the most open he's been with Remus since they started officially dating and it makes Sirius nervous (how did they get so far away from the couple that could talk about literally anything?).

Remus shrugs, "I don't think there's really a good way to deal with it. And if there is, I don't think I've got it either…" Sirius is surprised and thankful for Moony's honest reply.

"You don't have to, you know, you're allowed to take this however you want, Remus."

"Well, then so are you…"

"Hmm you see, that's where we disagree, because I'm not the one going through the hard time here."

"Well, you found out your boyfriend's got a vagina, that may be constituted as a bad time…"

"No, it doesn't." Sirius says it very seriously. "No, it doesn't. Nothing has changed, Moony. Your- the body you were born in doesn't change who you are, or the fact that you're a boy. The boy I fell in love with."

"You're too sweet. Way too sweet for me. And you're gay."

"Yeah, I like boys. Boys like you. Because you are a boy. And there's no such thing as being too sweet for you. You're sweet too and we love it each other so that's all that matters." He suddenly feels like he's arguing to keep Remus from breaking up with him.

"Pads…"

"Moony, don't. Really. I told you that I don't have a problem with you being trans, that I love you just the way you are, so can you just stop putting words in my mouth and fucking trust what I'm saying?" He realizes with a pang of guilt he's kinda scolding Moony, who's feeling dysphoric and in pain and definitely doesn't deserve his boyfriend to be scolding him on top of it all. The next sentence comes out much softer: "Can you just- Please believe me?"

"I- yeah, I'm sorry."

"You don't need to apologize," he sighs. "I just- I feel like we're going in circles," he confesses.

"We're not. I hear you, I do, I just- It's really not your fault, I'm just in a really crappy mood, I-" Remus hesitates, then sighs, "There's- there's this thing called PMS, it's- it basically means-"

"I know what it means," Sirius reassures him, "Marlene told me about it."

"Right. Marlene. A girl." Remus' tone comes out completely flat.

"I shouldn't have brought that up, should I?"

"Hum… Yeah, maybe not…" Remus leans his head back against the headboard. "Maybe… Maybe don't make any more associations between what's going on with me this week and girls. It just- I get that it's fair to make those associations, I just- it reminds me that it's not something that's supposed to happen to boys and that other boys don't have it and… Maybe I'm just overreacting, everything upsets me when I'm like this."

"Well, I think you have the right to be upset."

Remus takes a deep breath and nods. "That's a hard thing for me to accept..."

"Makes sense," Sirius nods, glad they're finally talking about these things. There are a few moments of silence, then he says: "So, hum, would the potion help with that PMS thing? 'Cause we could maybe try some spells to bring it back?"

"Ah, don't worry about it," Remus shrugs like he wasn't just crying over that motions a couple minutes ago. "It doesn't really help."

"What?" Talk about mood swings, huh? Sirius immediately feels guilty for thinking that.

"Oh, yeah, that's the best part of it," Remus goes on, thankfully oblivious to Sirius' thoughts. "The fucking pain potion? Doesn't even help. Doesn't do shit for me. I mean, maybe it does, I don't know, I always end up taking it anyway just in case, but it doesn't make the pain go away. Not for me. It helps all the bloody girls who Pomfrey gives it to - don't you dare make a joke right now - but it doesn't help for me. Nope, because my body just hates me that fucking much."

Sirius doesn't know what to say, so he settles for voicing his thoughts: "That fucking sucks, which makes Remus chuckle darkly. "Is it a werewolf thing?" He asks "Like, your body doesn't adapt to the potion the way it should or something?"

"I don't know… Maybe?" Remus frowns. "Pomfrey thinks there's something wrong with… with my uterus? She guessed endometriosis, but there's no way to tell unless I go to an actual specialized healer, which I refuse to do because… well, because I went once, a couple of years ago and… I got to the waiting room and it was so pink, the whole room, just a fucking overdose of pink, and everyone there was a woman, just a whole bunch of women sitting in that incredibly pink waiting room and they all looked up at me and gave me weird looks when I came in and I- I just freaked out. Told the receptionist I'd was in the wrong room or something and then I just ran the fuck away from there. Never went back."

"I can't blame you, it would have freaked me out too."

"Yeah, well it was stupid. I need to see a healer. If it's really endometriosis I might end up needing surgery in a couple of years just because I'm too stubborn to get it checked out now. Because I'm too proud or whatever to get a service that's clearly made for women."

"Can't blame you, though, I mean, you're a guy, so… You shouldn't have to get services that are clearly made for women… And you really might need surgery? Holy shit, having a uterus sucks, huh?"

"Ha, you don't even know how much…" Remus huffs. "You know… you don't need to keep telling me I'm a guy every two sentences... I got it, you want me to know you see me as a guy."

"Because you are." When Remus gives him a look Sirius chuckles. "Sorry, last time, I promise."

"Nah, it's- it's actually nice to know. I mean, I know you said it before but… There's a part of me that was wondering if maybe you only said it because you thought it was the right thing to ."

"No, I didn't," Sirius puts his hand on top of Remus', who turns his around so that now they're properly holding hands. "I really do see you as a guy, Remus, I never doubted it. Not even for a second."

"Thanks…" Remus breathes out, looking away, and Sirius swears he can hear the hint of tears in his voice again. He stares for long enough that Moony turns to meet his boyfriend's worried expression. "I- don't worry about it," he says softly, "I'm crying over pretty much anything right now." Their faces are so close they're almost touching.

"Okay," Sirius whispers and brings his free hand up to Remus' cheek to wipe away the tears with his thumb.

"It's gonna pass," Remus tells him, leaning into Sirius' hand slightly. "The mood swings, the pain, it's all gonna pass in a couple of days. I just gotta wait it out." He sounds so… sadly resigned.

"Okay. But I'm gonna wait with you, if you don't mind."

"No," Remus lays his head down on Sirius' shoulder, "I don't mind at all."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
